In this week’s parsha, Yaakov is on his deathbed and Yosef comes to visit him. Yaakov makes Yosef take a vow that after he dies, Yosef is to be in charge of taking his body back to Israel to be buried in the Maras Ha’Machpela (the cave where Adam, Chava, Avraham, Sara, Yitzchak, Rivka, and Leah were buried). Yaakov then tells Yosef that he knows that Yosef is upset at him, but he should not be. Yosef was upset (although he never said anything about this) that his mother Rochel was not buried in the Maras Ha’Machpela. Not only that, but she was not even buried in a city. She was buried on a roadside when they were coming back into Eretz Yisrael. Yaakov then explains the reason: G-d told him to put her there because in the future the Jews will be exiled from Eretz Yisrael. When they are exiled, they will pass by Rochel’s grave and they will ask her to pray to G-d for them. She will cry before G-d and the Jews will be comforted.

We know there is a law in the Torah to judge others meritoriously. This is certainly something everyone should do. But there is also another law that we need to follow and it can be seen in this story. If we do something that does not seem to make much sense, we need to make sure that others understand why we are doing it. We should not rely on them to judge us meritoriously. They certainly should, but we also have an obligation not to put them in that type of situation. We should always try our best to make sure others understand that there are good reasons for the things we do.

The story is told that the Chofetz Chaim once walked in late for Shacharis. After davening, he told his students that he was busy doing an important deed which made him late for shul that particular morning. The students replied they did not assume the Chofetz Chaim was doing anything else. The Chofetz Chaim replied that he needed to tell them, because it is an obligation to make sure that others are not forced to judge another person meritoriously.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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